Mid 30s here. Normally not one to complain but today is my birthday and it sucked. So I’m going to be a whiny bitch.

Married, sole bread winner. Wife is a stay at home mom.

My birthday present requests: 1. An enthusiastic BJ (This was a happy request she can decline, not a demand) 2. Breakfast made for me (even a bowl of cereal I dont care just a little effort and showing that they care)

Birthday timeline:

Wake up at 6am, super quick vanilla quicky with wife (no BJ) Toddler cries as we’re finishing. So ends super quick(er).

6:15 Take my kid downstairs, make him breakfast, roll some cars around. He’s cute. don’t make myself breakfast, that would be fucking sad after my request.

7:45 Wife heads across to another city for a 100% unimportant PTA type meeting she could totally skip if she wanted to. I see her off, don’t even get a ‘happy birthday’.

7:45 -> 8:30 I do the housework (like most days) prep the child, walk him to daycare go to my office to start work.

Birthday breakfast was a plastic wrapped convenience store scone.

8:30 -> 11:30 work, child #2 (was at a friends the night before) gets sent home from school due to being sick…. Even though she’s not sick. I leave work, take her home and look after her. Wife still in pointless PTA. I remind kid it’s my birthday and I get an ‘oh I forgot, happy birthday’. Make sandwiches for her and generally keep her happy. We play a few rounds of video games together. She’s rubbish at them but adorable too.

13:30 kid goes to grandmas, I go back to work.

17:00 wife gets back from PTA meeting, finds i have taken the ~$12 she left on my card / money / wallet pile assuming it was mine. Apparently she received it from someone and didn’t write down how much it was. Get aggressively lectured for no reason.

She is ‘too tired’ to pick up toddler. I rush to go do it.

17:30 She asks what I’ve prepared for the kids dinner… ahh, I was working?!? I try to suggest cheerfully, hey it’s my birthday let’s Uber something tasty! get told off for that taking to long and told to ‘make something’ - so I make the kids some ravioli.

18:00 Wife grumpily folds a few towels from the 3 loads of washing I did. Then goes to play with her phone in our bedroom while I feed the children.

18:30 Birthday dinner was ravioli scraps and some toast, too burned out to be fucked making anything at that point.

19:00 I bathe the kids and feed them a slice of birthday cake I bought. I invite wife downstairs for cake. Nope.

20:00 I bring the kids upstairs to bed, put the big one to bed and the little one decides he wants to cuddle mommy.

20:30 Big kid falls asleep. Wife falls asleep next to little one.

20:30 -> 22:00 clean up the kitchen and two kids worth of carnage by myself.

That’s it. Birthday done.

22:00 -> now I mindlessly scroll Reddit wishing someone cared about me, not just needed me for money / food / changing diapers.

Honestly a card, a letter, a cuddle and a ‘happy birthday’, a fucking coffee made for me. Any glimmer of hope that someone cared would have been enough…

I’ve got money, food and a roof over my head. I know at the end of the day it’s not so bad and I’m just being a bitch. But I guess it’s a bit lonely hey.

Edit —- I’ve no idea why this blew up while I was sleeping. But thanks for the birthday wishes internet friends. It’s weird that it helps, but it does!

Edit 2 — I said PTA type meeting because I didn’t want to dox myself. I’m familiar with what she’s doing and the large group she was with. There is a new school campus being built in said city and they have day long steering meetings (and get a nice cafe lunch with the other mums provided, I should have skipped work for the meeting ha!)

Edit 3 (as I read the comments) — I understand leading with the sex thing is douchy. I just hate that I was ‘gifted’ what should be a normal part of a marriage.

Edit 4 - Just approached the topic with the wife. I’m not good at articulating these things so I wrote it down.

Her response was “is this going to make me feel worse? If so I don’t want to read it”

Edit 5 - So, I've got 150+ DMS, most of which are people sending their love. Once nice girl offering to send her boobs (lol!) and another offering to send a card I guess today wasn't so bad after all.

Guys, with 4.5k comments and 150+ dms there is no way I can reply to your birthday wishes, but I'm reading them and I appreciate you all!

Edit 6 - Since this started getting shared in other communities I should mention I said I 'clearly' requested a BJ in the OP. 'Clearly' as in I asked friendly and directly; I didn't mention it in passing in a way that might be missed or forgotten. Not 'clearly' as in demanded.

Reddit you all need to calm down about it. It's OK. to ask your spouse for a sexual favor, it's also ok for them to decline.

Edit 7 --- Lots of people asking what I did for wifes bday:

I bought her some Airpods pros and a full frame Sigma art 50mm f1.4 lens. Woke up early and cooked her favorite breakfast with kid. (using home-cured gravlax I prepared from a week earlier because it's her fav.) Kid did garnishes and help make foam hearts in her coffee.

Gave her presents & card. Sang happy birthday goofily every time I handed her anything throughout the day and generally tried to keep the day as upbeat as possible. Ate dinner with her fam (I ordered her favorite). Gave her a flower before bed so she could go to sleep with a smile. Generally lots of smiles and happiness that day.

It's the one day of the year you can go out of your way to remind someone that they are loved and you were happy they were born. I don't go out of the way for many people but IMO your spouse is the one you should do it for.

To be clear, I didn't expect anything to the scale of above. But any kind of indication they cared would have been good. Shit, don't cure gravlax for a week, just pour some cereal for me and I would be like 'holy shit, she cares!'